"You can expect some most surprising results in this election from here. There have been several occasions in the past when a politically alive Bihar has shown the way country's polity has shaped up. There are indications that the BJP may well be sweeping elections in the state and if that happens if will simply be unstoppable at the national level", a senior Muslim JD(U) leader told Firstpost.
He rather ruefully admits that election results in Bihar might end up the Narendra Modi way. Another JD(U) leader, a prominent legislator said "Nitish Kumar will soon realise that severing ties with the BJP was his biggest political price. The emerging ground situation is a pointer that he will have to pay heavily for a completely misconceived decision."
His tone and tenor sounded more like one emanating from BJP ranks than to one belonging to its principal rival formation. However he says he is only calling the trends as he saw it, adding that he did not have any plans to switch sides to the BJP.
Nitish has also been accused of being too authoritarian: PTI
And he is not alone in his opinion.
Some ministers in Nitish government are feeling left out and are candid in sharing their disgruntlement. One of the party's most senior ministers, Narendra Singh has publicly voiced his disenchantment, while another minister, Renu Kushwaha, has timed her resignation from the party to coincide with her husband joining the BJP. All these factors are certainly impacting the electioneering and morale of JD(U) workers.
Elsewhere in Bihar, Lalu has not been able to resurrect his charisma or play his victim card beyond a point. More so, the continued defection of his close associates with varied caste profiles to both the JD(U) and BJP including those from his famed `M-Y' (Muslims and Yadavs) has left him shattered. Following his conviction in the fodder scam, Lalu himself can't fight elections, so his wife, sons and daughters are all up in the electoral arena.
As a consequence, campaigning for the RJD and Congress alliance has not picked up yet. Even Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar could be fighting a difficult battle from Sasaram on a Congress ticket.
"If Modi is able to make an overwhelming presence and dominate the public discourse against two formidable secularists, Nitish Kumar and Lalu Prasad Yadav, then that could be suggestive of the evolving national mood", said another leader who has hopped between RJD and JD(U). He blames the two top leaders for taking a series of wrong steps, all of which have only ended up strengthening a rising popular perception that Modi has created an electoral wave.
While several prominent leaders from both these parties switched sides to the BJP, the party's hopes for a credible Yadav leader from Lalu's stable were fulfilled with Ram Kripal Yadav joining the BJP amid some fanfare at BJP central headquarters 11 Ashoka Road in New Delhi in the presence of party president Rajnath Singh and senior state leaders.
Yadav will take on Lalu's eldest daughter Misa from the RJD and Ranjan Yadav, Lalu's erstwhile friend and sitting MP from JD(U) in Patliputra constituency. Ram Kripal had won from here in 2004 (then called Patna before delimitation) but in 2009 Lalu Yadav took it away from him to contest there himself. Surprisingly, Lalu lost from here but the saving grace was that he won from Chapra, another constituency that he had fought.
Ram Kripal, a Rajya Sabha MP, had been one of Lalu's most formidable lieutenants for over three decades. His switching sides to the "communal" BJP has unnerved not just Lalu's clan and other RJD leaders, but also JD(U) leaders. Their uneasiness is rooted in the emerging ground reality that is crystallising after a series of political realignment -- beginning with Koeri community leader Upendra Kushwaha's decision to join the BJP and getting three seats in the bargain.
This was followed by Dalit leader Ramvilas Paswan defecting from the RJD-Congress combine to join the NDA and getting seven seats as part of the deal. Now Ram Kripal a known Yadav face joining the BJP – is giving out the impression that Modi has indeed become a shining face of the backward community and his party, the BJP was "accommodating all.
In contrast the so called messiahs of "inclusive" and "social justice" politics, Lalu and Nitish are looking rather exclusivist. This in fact, was exactly what Ram Kripal told the media after his decision to join the BJP.
He accused the RJD chief of being so concerned about the future of his sons and daughters, that he was willing to sacrifice long time loyalists like Ram Kripal.
Similarly, party colleagues have accused Nitish of never taking senior leaders into confidence and of running the party like his personal fiefdom.
"As they grew taller they started believing that we all exist because of them, forgetting that we all had some role in helping them reach where they are today. That's a mistake Nitish is making. He loves to dictate not consult. He had so much of goodwill and he didn't have a family to promote or a baggage to carry on", a leader who knows him closely said.
Modi too has an image of an arrogant and autocratic leader, but a number of leaders of various political hues in Bihar told Firspost that Modi represents a structured party where voices of others also matter. The BJP Prime Ministerial candidate is also consciously working on an image overhaul to appear nationally acceptable.
It was not without reason that Modi in a recent outing in Purnea, repeated what he said in Patna that he came from the land of "Dwarkadheesh" (Lord Krishna's land) and as such was the protector of the Yaduvanshi's (of the socially dominant Yadavas) in Bihar and UP.
Kushwaha, Ramvilas Paswan and Ramkripal have shown the way the wind could move on the penultimate day.
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